Evil Machinations

No scenario survives contact with the PCs … No system survives contact with the GM

Missing You: When the GM Can’t Be There

Jade | September 10, 2009

Players aren’t the only ones who miss the occasional game session. Every once in a while the GM gets called into work at the last moment, or his wife (or the GM herself!) goes into labor early… there are numerous reasons why a GM might have to miss a particular session.
So with a missing GM, [...]

Fred’s Missing *Again*?

Jade | July 10, 2009

Every player has days they can’t make a game. Sometimes, a great conjunction of events happens and a player has to miss a session at the very last minute. It happens to all of us.
These aren’t the players I’m referring to.
It can be one of the most frustrating things about a running a game: having [...]

What Your Players Don’t Need to Know

Jade | July 3, 2009

I’m taking a break from Meadowbrook for a few days; I don’t want this blog to become “all Meadowbrook all the time”. I’m considering starting another blog devoted to world-building that would chronicle my development of Meadowbrook and it’s surrounding world; if this is something that would interest you, please leave me a comment. Now, [...]

Character Backgrounds

Jade | May 4, 2009

There’s a continuum about character backgrounds. I use detailed character backgrounds in my games; in fact, I warn players that I reserve the right to fill in any character history they don’t. Other GMs don’t bother with backgrounds at all — a sentence or two at the top of the character sheet. It really depends [...]

Player Contributions

Jade | April 27, 2009

Said while making snacks for the group …
Dave [player]: Hey, can I have experience points for baking cookies?
GM: Sure, Dave can have 200 experience points; Billee [his character] can’t.
[12 Aug 2009 Note: There's an updated version of this post at Player contributions, Take Two.]
I first ran across the idea of player/character contributions when I [...]

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